


The Curse

by FurorNocturna



Category: Wander Over Yonder (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, but it's a long road to earning it, it's not pretty, rating may go up too, warning for effects of the titular Curse, will add more tags as I think of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 05:35:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FurorNocturna/pseuds/FurorNocturna
Summary: Wander and Sylvia help a runaway with more than a few secrets of her own.





	1. Chapter 1

On the distant planet of Xertos 15, a hooded figure flees at swift speeds from her would-be captors. 

As fast as her feet would carry her, she sprinted all through the bustling downtown city of Dynax. Another merchant’s stand knocked over, another mess and inconvenience she caused, another person she sent falling on their behind, always with an endless stream of apologies. However, not once did she stop. She had to keep moving.

The hooded female abruptly took a sharp right, unknowingly turning into a dead-end alleyway. At least, not until she ran into the wall face first. The collision stunned her into a daze, long enough for her pursuers to corner her.

“End of the line, sweetheart,” chortled one, a horrible sound.

“Got nowhere to run now,” chimed in another.

The hooded figure scrambled backwards, stumbling over something metallic. More terrible laughter echoed in the small space. Her breathing quickened as she backed as far as she could into the corner.

“Stay back! Stay away!” she pleaded.

Her cries were ignored as one of the thugs grabbed hold of her face, yanking back the hood that obscured it. A seedy smile of gnarled fangs split across his own mug as he took in the girl’s delicate pale light purple complexion and spilling waves of long snow white hair.

“Pretty thing like you should fetch us fellas a nice, handsome price.” the thug smirked, before eyeing the cloth tied over the upper part of her face. This was quickly snatched off, uncovering two forcefully shut eyes. “Now let’s just see those pretty little eyes so we can set a good starting bid.”

“DON’T LOOK!”

Once more, she was ignored.

 

_**THE CURSE** _

 

Just outside the alley, a few bystanders and officers of the law witnessed the burst of red and black lights surge from inside it in their peripherals. Ghastly screams followed, which prompted the officers to go and investigate. 

None of them were prepared for what they would find.

“Grop almighty…” breathed the senior officer of the three, the other two juniors promptly dashing to the nearby dumpsters to lose their lunch. “Officer requesting backup…”

Somewhere else, the hooded figure retied her blindfold, and resumed her sprint.

Blindly into the unfamiliar world.


	2. Chapter 2

“Aaaaand there! Good as new!” Wander declared happily, having finished restocking a damaged fruit stand from the ripest Durvarian melon down to the last jubilcherry.

“Oh thank you so much!” the fruit vendor lauded, an elephantine individual with three trunks. “I thought for sure I’d lost two weeks worth of produce when those hellions all but demolished it!”

“No trouble at all, good sir!” Wander assured. “Anything to help!”

It was a day like any other for the wanderer and his best pal, Sylvia. Traveling to new places, experiencing many and fantastical things, and of course, lending a helpful hand to anyone in need. It just so happened that an entire stretch of street market stands had a bit of an incident earlier, leaving them in various states of disrepair and disarray.

Wander was all too eager to assist with clean up.

“That should be the last of it,” Sylvia chimed in, dusting off her hands once she completed the last of the repairs to the final stand. While Wander aided in recollecting and restocking scattered inventory, the Zbornak had handled the heavier lifting and fixing.

It took a few hours, but the gracious peddlers awarded the pair nicely with their best products on the house.

“Thank you both again,” said a newspaper vendor, a kindly insectoid individual.

“Enjoy the rest of your day!” Wander called back, waving them goodbye.

However their trek was stopped short by a line of police tape.

“Whoa, what happened here?” Sylvia wondered aloud.

With the multitude of officers gathered about and all the flashing lights from their cruisers and paramedics, it was amazing they hadn’t noticed until now. She couldn’t make out much of what the officers were saying, but anyone with eyes could see they were disturbed by something.

What that something was, Sylvia had no idea.

“…heard screaming…unlike any I’ve ever heard in all my years on the field…” one muttered.

“…the bodies…they were so…” managed another before proceeding to puke in a trashcan for another time.

As if on cue, the coroners began exiting the alleyway with gurneys carrying–

Sylvia blanched, quickly shoving Wander’s hat over his eyes and squeezing him in her grip so he couldn’t look.

She pointedly tuned out his muffled questions as she turned tail and ran. She didn’t let Wander out until she put a good three blocks between them and that horrible sight.

* * *

By the time they stopped for lunch, Wander had forgotten about the crime scene, much to Sylvia’s relief. 

They munched on their sandwiches contently as they made their way underground towards the subway system. Wander wanted to see everything in Dynax, after all. Even the gritty, graffiti-littered parts, it seemed. On the other hand, the chance to rest her aching feet riding the transport wasn’t something she was opposed to.

While Wander chummed it up with the subway musicians, she went and paid for their tickets. A wry smile crossed her muzzle seeing the small crowd her best buddy had drawn playing alongside the other performers, no doubt earning those folks a small fortune in donations. Only he could make the dreariest of places shine like the blaze of a thousand suns.

The crowd whooped and whistled with applause. Most people wouldn’t have batted an eye, let alone even overheard, the clattering commotion of some poor soul tumbling down the stairs into a pair of trash bins over the din of the clapping. Sylvia, however, was not most people.

From the corner of her eye, the Zbornak noticed a strange figure at the source of the lesser noise. Despite the unassuming simplicity of their purplish-black cloak, the hooded figure stuck out to Sylvia like a sore thumb. The fact that they were also stumbling about as if they never figured out how legs worked only increased her suspicions as they picked themselves back up.

Completely disregarding the mess, the figure then broke into a run. Sylvia watched agape as the hooded individual proceeded to barrel through the crowd like a bowling ball striking a set of pins. She loosely registered Wander trying to approach them before anger took hold when the stranger knocked him off his feet too.

“Hey, watch it!” Sylvia snapped after the stranger, making her way over to help Wander back to his feet. “You okay, buddy?”

Wander nodded, but never took his eyes off the stranger. Sylvia merely snorted as the hooded individual continued to fumble about with apparent little regard for anyone else around them. Right as she was about to turn her back and forget the stranger entirely, they veered at a diagonal and fell off the terminal onto the tracks with a yelp.

“Wander, wait!” Sylvia shouted, but her nomadic companion was already moving.

Wander leapt down on the tracks with ease and wasted no time helping the stranger stand up. Clearly dazed, the stranger swayed on their feet, Wander being quick to steady them. Before he could get a word out to ask about their well-being, Wander found himself briefly deafened by the blare of a train whistle.

The ground rustled heavily as the locomotive neared, headlights bearing down on the pair with greater intensity with every inch of distance closed between it and the two. With haste, Wander reached into his hat, which produced a decent length of rope.

“Wander! GET OUT OF THERE!!” Sylvia screeched.

“Catch, Syl!” he called back, tossing her one end of the rope.

In one swift motion, Sylvia yanked the two back onto the terminal to safety, pulling them close as the oncoming train whirred passed.

“Good Grop, that was too close!” Sylvia huffed, still adrenalized from Wander’s latest stunt.

“Wait, wha? What?” the stranger mumbled out, voice undeniably feminine.

“You alright there, Miss?” Wander asked.

The hooded female suddenly scrambled away from the two. “Stay away! Stay away!”

“Hey! My best buddy here just saved your life after you nearly got yourself run over! How about a little gratitude?!” Sylvia snapped.

“Stay away! Stay away! _Stay_ _away_!” the female repeated, hyperventilating with each backward step.

Above them, several lights exploded and went out, showering the screaming bystanders with glass and stray sparks. The stranger then bent over, clutching at her head, strong gusts whipping about granting her a wide berth.

“Go away, go away! GET ME AWAY FROM HERE!!!” she shrieked, beams of light in all colors emitting from her being.

Once the burst died down, she was gone.

Sylvia blinked, unsure of what to make of the encounter. She shook her head after a moment. She’d seen weirder on her adventures with Wander.

“Whelp, that happened. Our train should be here in a few minutes, so why don’t we…” Sylvia trailed off as she reached for her friend, only to find it vacant of its occupant.

“Wander? Wander! WANDER!?”


End file.
